Pan-Islamism and Iqbal

Shereen Aslam

All discussion of Iqbal’s political activities and his contribution to the Muslim political awakening must begin with the recognition that Iqbal was in no sense a politician. He composed poetry and wrote extensively in prose. He was essentially a poet and a political philosopher; in both the fields he achieved outstanding international repute. Although, Iqbal was pre-occupied with literary activities, a sensitive mind like his could not remain unconcerned with what was happening around him in the field of politics. His participation in practical politics was confirmed only during the last decade of his life.[1]

Iqbal was born in Sialkot on 9th November, 1877,[2] which was the second phase of the Pan-Islamic movement. Pan-Islamism or Muslim universalism was a cardinal feature of Iqbal’s political thinking. The historical survey of Pan-Islamic movement admits of being divided into three periods. Although, the divisions are arbitrary, they are useful for the purpose of our study.

The first consists in the period from the death of the Prophet (PBUH) to the 18th century. It started from the hey day of Muslim power and ended at its decline.

The second period begins with the 18th century and ends in March, 1924, when the Turkish National Assembly dismissed Khalifa Abdul Majid and abolished the Khilafah.[3] The period deals with the rise of wahabism and the revolt of the Muslim world against the European political and spiritual encroachments. It is an important period because it witnessed a united and political Muslim front imbued with Pan-Islamic ideology. Muslim India was included in this general awakening. During this phase, Iqbal’s name was closely associated with the Pan-Islamic movement. In fact, certain circles believed that Iqbal’s message was the continuation or rather culmination of the movement which was started by Syed Jamal-al-Din Afghani[4], who was the leader of the new Pan-Islamism.

The third period belongs to the 19th and 20th centuries in which nationalism took the place of Pan-Islamism.[5] The purpose of my paper is to study the idea of Pan-Islamism or Muslim Universalism in Iqbal’s writings.

The term “Pan-Islamism” was coined by the Western orientalists during the 19th Century[6] and was hardly used in a complementary sense. “Pan Islamism is defined as a kind of league of the “Muhammadan states for the defence of “Mussalman Faith”.[7] The growing feeling of solidarity of the Muslims has time and again been designated as fanaticism and a resurgence of the Muslim hostility towards Christianity”[8]. Later, even Muslim writers frequently used it to explain Muslim brotherhood.[9] The meaning definition of Pan-Islamism is feeling of solidarity amongst all Muslims irrespective of race or nationality. It expresses itself practically in the international sphere as a desire to operate as a single entity under a common leadership.

The origin of this movement can be traced back to the rise of Islam itself. The object of Islam was to demolish all discriminations based on caste, colour, creed and territory. The Qur’an and the traditions (Hadith) of the Prophet (SaS) are replete with the instructions and the injunctions again sectional tendencies among human beings. The Qur’an laid down the principle: “The believers are but one brotherhood”[10]

Similarly, one of the many traditions of the Prophet (SAS) is “The Muslims are as a wall, one part supporting another, the Muslims are all one body. If the eye is injured, the whole body suffers; if the foot is injured, then too the whole body suffers.[11]

It is a matter of history that for centuries the Muslims of the world used to move freely from one Muslim country to another without visas or permits. They settled freely wherever they liked and even rose to eminent positions in local governments. Grunebaum, mentioning this fact, says that according to the Muslim law any Muslim was a full-fledged “Citizen” of a Muslim ruled state in which he happened to find himself and no Muslim was an alien in any Muslim land[12] However, the conquest of Muslim lands by European powers was the first blow to this principle. European powers imposed territorial restrictions and gave to the different lands specific nomenclatures of nationalities. They put restrictions on movement and travel as well which, with the passage of time, were made more rigid and thus the Muslim world was divided into watertight compartments and this is how the Muslims lost a scene of unity and purpose. When the Muslims lost politic independence history of Muslim Universalism also disappeared with it.[13]

Muslim Universalism meant the rule of caliph whose spiritual and political ascendancy was supreme in the Muslim Empire. The whole Empire is one great entity of believers where unity and oneness under the divine law governed the affairs of the individual and the community, after the end of the period of the, pious caliphate, the Muslim world went through sort bitter experiences. During the second half of the 19th century, the political scene changed rapidly and the Muslims lost most of their political bases.[14]

In 1857, after India’s First war of Independence, the Mughal empire in the Indo-Pak subcontinent finally came to an end. Between 1857 and 1864 Russia conquered the independent Muslim states of the Caucasus. By 1886 the Uzbek Khanates were also subjugated. British Indian government waged many wars against Afghanistan. Iran had become a bed of international conspiracies. Malaya and Indonesia had become colonies of the Western powers. In North Africa, Algeria had been occupied by France in 1850. Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881 and a year later Britain occupied Egypt. In Eastern Europe, the Ottoman Sultan had to cede large territories with a substantial Muslim population Bosnia, Bulgaria and several other areas to the non-Muslim powers. Sudan was also conquered by Britain. Thus, the entire Muslim world was in a state of political, social, religious and moral degeneration.

This confusion was further increased by the impact of westernization because the western educated elite looked at even their own religion with suspicion. It was under these-circumstances that during the last decades of the 19th century, in an atmosphere of protest and bitterness, the Pan-Islamic movement arose in the Muslim World.[15]

The outstanding hero of this movement, from whom Iqbal took inspiration, was Jamal-al-Din Afghani. Who led a single-handed crusade[16], with his knowledge of the Shari’ah and an exceptional gift of eloquence? Wherever he went, Afghani’s magnetic personality left a mark of awakening and group of followers to carry on his mission. His Pan-Islamism was basically a doctrine of unity of the Muslim world and constitutionalism. His primary aim was to emancipate the Muslim lands from western imperialism and to re-kindle among the Muslims a love for Islamic ideals of unity, purity and progress. To many he was the chief spokesman of modernism in Islam.

According to some historians he was born in 1839, near Kabul.[17] Where as Nikki Keddie says, Jamal al-Din was an Iranian, born in Asadabad near Hamadan, into a family[18] of Sayyids Till the age of 10 he studied in the local school and thereafter at various places in Persia and Afghanistan. At the age of 18, he had a good knowledge of Muslim sciences, Arabic, philosophy, Muslim history, Muslim theology, sufism, logic, physics, mathematics, medicine and other subjects.[19] At the same age, Afghani came to India and stayed for about a year and a half during which he created a great impact on the Indian Muslims.[20] Thereafter, throughout his life, Afghani visited various countries in Asia, Europe and North Africa speaking against the occupation of the Muslim lands by the Western powers and stressing the need for the unity of the Muslim Ummah.[21] He died in Constantinople (Istambul) on the 9th of March, 1897.[22] In the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent Afghani’s influence was deep and lasting. Wilfrid Scwa Blunt in his diary remarked about Afghani’s popularity in India. Thus: for Jamal-ud-Din they professed something like worship”[23]

Afghani was such a great leader that nearly every renowned leader in the sub-continent during the twentieth century including Mohammad Iqbal, has paid tribute to his contribution to the cause of Muslim awakening. Afghani believed that the modern reform movement in Islam should be based on the original Islamic principles of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, He believed that to be subjected to an alien rule was against Islam.[24]

IQBAL’S VIEWS

Iqbal’s main contribution was to develop a distinct Muslim consciousness along with the sense of continuity with their nationalist feelings. Born during the midst of the process of the downfall of most Muslim empires, he not only witnessed the end of the process but also the beginning of the birth of the new aspiration among Muslims for a future which could be created and molded by themselves.[25] He said:-

“If the Turks were overwhelmed by disaster, what then?”

“The morn is born of the death of a million stars”[26]

Iqbal’s earliest poems reveal no interest in politics. These are only marked by a spirit of ardent nationalism. His appeal throughout the years was for the union of two great communities of Hindus and Muslims of India. One of the famous poems of this period is “Tarrana-i-Hindi”.[27]

During his stay in Europe, Iqbal absorbed new ideas. He found the idea of nationalism as inadequate to solve the problems of humanity. Greed and selfish competition between man and man between nation and nation could not be the basis of a society of which Iqbal was dreaming. The following line composed in March, 1907[28] revealed his thoughts.

O residents of the West, God’s earth is not a shop

The gold which you are thinking to be genuine will now prove to be of low value,

Your civilization is going to commit suicide with her own dagger;

The nest which is made on a frail bough cannot be secure”[29]

Disillusionment with European culture made Iqbal look inward to seek inspiration from his, own religion. Thus Western civilization, instead of estranging Iqbal from his roots, made him turn to Islam. He said that if Islam had to face the West, some superficial practices in Islam would have to be discarded. This led him to believe that pantheism was a destructive force which had killed the will to act in the Muslims and resulted in the decline of Islamic civilization. He was of the view that the pantheistic God was very different from the vigorous depiction of teh Quranic God.[30] His study in Europe had therefore equipped Iqbal to play an important role for the uplift of the Muslim Ummah.[31] As a matter of fact, he returned home to British India fully determined to reconstruct a new world for the Muslims of India. Just back home, he wrote:

Nationalism in the sense of love of one’s country, and even readiness to die for its honour, is a part of the Muslim’s faith: it comes into conflict with Islam only when it begins to play the role of a political concept, and claims to be a principle of human solidarity demanding that Islam should recede to the background of a mere private opinion and cease to be a living factor in the national life.[32]

He further discussed Iqbal’s criticism of Nationalism, “Thus Iqbal’s criticism of nationalism was based on moral, spiritual and political factors. He sincerely felt that the doctrine lacked spiritual and moral basis”.[33]

Hence, he was not inconsistent in his views, with and having contradiction in his poetry as stated Moin Shakir,[34] but he only switched off his pro-nationalism view to Pan-Islamism which it was quite natural. This was the process of historical evolution of Iqbal’s philosophy.

After his return to India, Iqbal applied himself unceasingly to the’ interpretation of Islam and the spiritual values for which it stood. Henceforth, the most important quest was for an interpretation of Islam as a complete way of life. M.L. Ferrar says:

What strikes one first in Iqbal is the strength and the fervour of his love for Islam as an ideal which if fully realized should suffice for man’s every want in this world and the next.[35]

After 1908 Iqbal was now no longer confined to the limits of India. He had extended himself to cover the entire world of Islam, which knows no boundary, territory, race or caste. Iqbal was of the view that the Muslim commonwealth, as established by the Holy Prophet (SAS), was based on the equality of all Muslims. There was no privileged class, no priesthood and no caste system.[36]

Here sectarianism triumphs, class and caste there rule the day.

It is thus you hope to prosper, to regain your ancient sway?”

“But can you claim you are Muslims if the truth must be confessed?[37]

According to Iqbal, Islam does not recognize difference of race or the historic differences of nationality. Nationality in Islam was not the highest limit of political development.[38] Furthermore, according to the Islamic law, there is no distinction between the church and the state.[39]

We are not Afghan, Turk or Tartar, but are all of one family. Let us

ignore our different colours for we are all children of the same idea.[40]

But to act as one, and Muslim - that would every bound exceed.[41]

Music of strange lands with Islam’s fire blends, on which the nation’s harmony depends;

empty of concord is the soul of Europe.

Whose civilization to no Mecca bends.[42]

Another aspect of his personality was Iqbal’s inclination towards Sufism. Iqbal believed in the supremacy of intiuation over intellect and the soul over the body. His father was also a suf. (belonging to the Qadri order). Iqbal was a disciple of his father. The passivity in some sufi orders is due to the influence of Greek and Persian thoughts, For instance, the true spirit of Islam, according to Iqbal, was lost in the pursuit of idle tales, the believers had their way in the wilderness of traditions.

True religion has sunk lower than irreligiousness,

For the Mulla, though religous, is branding people as faithless.

The religion of the kafir consists in planning for earnest endeavour.

The religion of the Mulla is creating trouble in the name of God.”[43]

Iqbal was a sensitive person and much concerned with the politics of the sub-continent. In 1916, the Lucknow Pact was signed between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League after which Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad ‘Ali Jinnah was hailed as an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. However,Iqbal did not agree with the contents of this pact. He thought that under the terms of the Lucknow Pact Muslims would he lose in the Hindu crowd. As the philosopher of ‘self’ he wanted the Muslims to stand on their own to maintain their separate identity.

O knowing man,

learn that the soul is not confined in space,

but that the liberated man defies all goals, and furious grows at this dark earth;

for hawks cannot perform the work of mice.[44]

Iqbal was opposed to the secularization of Muslim politics in India, He declared that Mr. Gandhi could not be a model to be followed by Muslims, In fact Iqbal stated that the Muslims could not follow any political guidelines laid down by human beings. Iqbal believed that it was imperative for the Muslims to seek guidance from the Qur’an and the Sunnah alone. Muslims could not make their conduct, political or otherwise, subsequent to the thinking or direction of Mr. Gandhi or other politicians.

After his return from London to India, the idealistic view of an Indian nation composed of Hindu and Muslims living in amity remained no more practical for Iqbal. It was strengthened due to Hindu prejudiced attitude towards politics; the best example in this connection was the annulment of the partition of Bengal, in 1911, due to the Hindu agitation followed by the partition of Bengal in 1905. In the meanwhile Muslims founded All-India Muslim League in 1906. So, he was looking at the Indian political scene at that time as a Muslim more than as an Indian citizen.

World politics also influenced Muslim India. September, 1911 convinced Indian Muslims that non-Muslim forces were bent upon crushing the Muslim forces every where. Iqbal was affected by those events and expressed his views at the annual session of the Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam, Lahore, in 1911. In his poem “Shikwa” Iqbal asks God the reasons for the lamentable disasters on His chosen people. Later during the non-cooperation movements in 1920 he refused to oblige them. He gave his resignation from the post of the secretary of the ‘Khilafat Committee’. He criticized and warned those Muslims who were working under the leadership of Mr. Gandhi because Gandhi was using them for his own political purposes and for the sake of National Congress which were not acceptable to any Muslim.

Iqbal’s intellectual and poetic maturity was consistent with the times, as the Pan-Islam movement had taken a firm hold over the religious and political thinking of the Muslim world during the years 1919 1924. After his initial enthusiasm for territorial nationalism, Iqbal had become an ardent Muslim Universalist. His concept of the Ummah was basically Pan-Islamic and his whole hearted advocacy was for a return to the Qur’an as a code of human conduct. It can he said that with Iqbal’s genius, the movement which was started by Al-Afghani reached its highest watermark. Iqbal expressed great admiration for Jamal-ud-din Al-Afghani in his prose and his poetic writings.

Maulana Jamal, Sayyid of all Sayyids, whose

eloquence gave life to stone and shred.[45]

behold, that world lies within your own heart;

now I will tell von of its firm foundations.[46]

In his letter to a friend Iqbal had stated that in his view if anybody was entitled to be called a Mujaddid, it was Jamal al-din Al-Afghani. He regarded Afghani as the chief architect of the present day renaissance in the Muslim World.[47]

Again while writing to Jawahar Lal Nehru, Iqbal further expressed his immense esteem for Afghani by saying that no other man in his time had stirred the soul of Islam more deeply than Afghani. He said that his spirit was still working in the world of Islam and nobody knows where it would end.[48]

In poetry too, Iqbal devoted considerable space to .Afghani’s ideas, especially in his Javid Nama. Thus Iqbal’s image of the future of Islam was Muslim Universalism. He firmly believed that denial of the universal brotherhood of Islam meant the rejection of the basic principles of the Quranic ideology. In his view, the main cause of the downfall of Muslim community was disunity among the Muslim Ummah. All students of Iqbal agree that Muslim Universalism lay at the core of his message to the contemporary Muslim World. For instance, Sinha is of the view that, “Islamic ‘internationalism’ or Pan-Islamism, is the keynote of Iqbal’s poetry.”[49]

Professor Arberry in his introduction to Rumuz-i-Bekhudi mentions that Iqbal has made a case for international Islam. Arberry further writes that Iqbal was constantly thinking about the possibility of the revival of the Caliphate.[50] Professor Brown in his review of Asrar-i-Khudi writes that it is by no means a Western philosophy but rather a philosophical Pan-Islamism, designed to cure the ills of Muslims.[51]

Muslim Universalism was not merely one of the phases of Iqbal’s thought. In fact, once Iqbal fully absorbed the spirit of Islam he unfhinclingly advocated Islamic Internationalism. Like Afghani, he believed that unless the Muslims realized the value of Muslim Universalism they would remain socially and politically backward. A writer K.A. Wadud has also said that among modern Muslim thinkers, Iqbal is indebted most to AI-Afghani who tried hard to drive home the message of scientific outlook and political resurgence in the Muslim society.[52]

Iqbal himself tirelessly advocated the cause of Muslim Universalism. His non-Muslim critics used the term ‘Pan-Islamism’ for him in a derogatory sense. But he himself was convinced that the universality of Islam was vital to the faith and the Ummah.[53] He believed that if the Muslim nations were to survive in the contemporary competitive world, they must again link themselves together as one compact entity. In a short address, which he delivered at the Muhammaden Educational Conference in 1911, Iqbal openly declared that it was his conviction that Muslim Ummah as a simple entity has a glorious future.[54]

Again in a lecture, which was reproduced in the report in the Census for India 1911, Vol-XIV, Iqbal further elaborated, that Islam abhores all material limitations. It bases its nationality on a purely abstract idea. He further said that, in its essence, Islam was non-temporal and non-spatial. Iqbal’s zest for ‘Pan-Islamic’ society was not just an ideal, as according to Iqbal himself the ideal and the real are not two opposing forces. Idealism does not mean a complete break with realism. In fact, it was his perpetual endeavour to bring the ideal closer to the real. In his opinion, Islam as a religion is the simplest of all religions because it only expects from its believers a belief in the unity of God, and the finality of the mission of the Prophet (SAS). A belief in these principles is sufficient to eliminate all distinctions of caste, colour, creed and race and by the foundations of equality and universality for the Muslim Ummah. He further believed that by eliminating all distinctions and discriminations, Islam gave each individual a sense of personal security and power.

In reply to Sir Fazal Hussain’s statement  that the political “Pan-Islamism” never existed, Islam as a society does not recognize the barrier of race, nationality or geographical frontiers. In this humanitarian idea ‘Pan-Islamism’— if one likes to call it for simple expression ‘Islam’—does and has always existed.[55] This gives a clear picture of Iqbal’s thoughts about Muslim Universalism.

Another point that emerges from Iqbal’s philosophy is that Ummah and Muslim Universalism means the same thing. While elaborating this point he further said that Islamic outlook on nationalism is different from other nations. Nationalism in Islam is not based on the unity of languages, oneness of territory or economic affinities. Its basis is the simple unity, the Ummah, founded by the Holy Prophet (SAS) and its membership rests on common belief about God and His creation and the historical traditions which we all share together.

After establishing the fact that belief in the Universal soverignity of Allah is an integral part of the Muslim faith Iqbal could not reconcile himself with the idea that the Muslim world should be divided into antagonistic territorial nation states.

In Payam-i-Mashriq, while referring to an incidence pertaining to Tariq, the conquerer of Spain, Iqbal says that love for one’s place of birth to the extent that it becomes a barrier to the spread of Islam, is an alien concept. A Muslim is expected to believe that since the entire world belongs to God, no Muslim can ever be an alien in any land and the whole world belongs to him.[56]

“On the shore of Spain, when Tariq set fire to his fleet;

the action is against the dictates of reason

They said.

Far away from our country, how shall we get back there?

When is the destruction of means permissible in religion?

He smiled, drew his hand to his sword and said:

every country is our country that is our god’s country. “[57]

During an interview Iqbal said that the term “Pan-Islamism” was invented by a French journalist “whose name I cannot recall” and in the sense in which he used the terms “Pan-Islamism” existed nowhere except in his own imagination. Later the expression “Pan-Islamism” was taken to mean a kind of intrigue, the centre of which was Constantinople[58]  But, late Professor Brown of the Cambridge University conclusively proved that ‘Pan-Islamism’ in that sense never existed in Constantinople or anywhere else.

Iqbal further said, that there is however, another sense in which Jamal al-Din AL-Afghani used it, i.e. he advised Afghanistan, Persia and Turkey to unite against the aggression of Europe, which was purely a defensive measure and as such, Iqbal fully endorses this view of AL-Afghani.

According to Iqbal, there is yet another sense in which the word should be used i.e. not as a political project but as a social experiment. (He further says that, Islam does not recognize caste, race or colour. In fact, according to him Islam is the only out-look on life which has really solved the colour question, at least in the Muslim World, a question which modern European civilization with all its achievements in science and philosophy has not been able to solve. This kind of ‘Pan-Islamism’ which was taught by the Prophet (SAS) will live for ever. In this sense ‘Pan-Islamism’ is only ‘Pan-Humanism” In Iqbal’s view, in this sense every Muslim is a Pan-Islamist and ought to be so. He further said, that the word ‘Pan’ ought to be dropped from the phrase “Pan-Islamism”, for Islamism is an expression which completely covers his stated views on “Pan-Islamism:[59]

To conclude, the origin of Pan-Islamism can be traced back to the rise of Islam itself, (though the word was coind by a French journalist). Pan-Islamism arose when the new religion demolished all discriminations based on caste, colour, creed and territory. However, in the recent past, Syed Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani proved to be a great stalwart of the movement. Afghani’s ‘Pan-Islamism’ was based on the doctrine of unity of the Muslim World and constitutionalism. His main aim was to emancipate Muslim lands from the Western imperialism and to re-kindle among the Muslims a love for the Islamic ideals of unity, purity and progress.

As a politician, Iqbal’s participation in practical politics was confined only to the last ten years of his life. Both in his poetry and prose, Iqbal laid great stress on unity amongst Muslims. He believed that the Ummah is a compact universal entity and any attempt to divide it into sections and parochial entities was against the mission of the Holy Prophet (SAS), who instructed the Muslims to he united forever in the bond of interminable unity.

NOTES